I might hate thee and set against thy wayes BVT saith the ungodly sensualist I will never believe that God delighteth in long and earnest prayers or that he is moved by the passions or the words of men and therefore I take this but for babling which you call the serious diligence of Believers in their serving God To this impious objection I return these several answers 1. I suppose this were true as you imagine what 's this to you that serve God no way at all with any serious diligence that live in sensuality and wilful disobedience to his Laws and do more for your bodies then for your souls and for temporal things then for eternal 2. Who do you think is likest to understand Gods mind and what is pleasing to him Himself or you Is any thing more plainly commanded in Gods Word then praying with frequency fervency and importunity Luk. 18. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. 1 Thes 5. 17. Jam 5. 16. And will you tell God that he hath but dissembled with you and told you that he is pleased with that which is not pleasing to him 3. And what is the reason of your unbelief forsooth because God is not moved with humane words or passions I grant he is not But what of that Hath prayer no other use but to move God It is enough 1. That it moveth us and fiteth us to receive his mercies 2. And that God hath made it necessary to the effect and a means or condition without which he will not give thee the blessing Do you think if you judge but by natural reason that a person is as fit for a mercy that knoweth not the want or worth of it and would not be thankful for it if he had it as one that valueth it and is disposed to thankfulness and improvement And do you not know that holy prayer is nothing but the actuating of holy desires and the exercise of all those graces which are suited to the due estimation and improvement of the mercy And is it not the way when we would draw the boat to the bank to lay hold of the bank and pull as if we would draw it to the boat If God be not moved and drawn to us it is enough that we are moved and drawn to God And with all that God may give his own blessings to whom and upon what terms he please and that he hath assured us he will give them but to those that value desire and seek them and that with faith and fervency and importunity And yet I may add that God is so far above us as that his incomprehensible essence and blessed nature is very little known to us and therefore though we know and confess that he hath no humane passions or imperfections yet if he assume to himself the title of such a thing as love desire joy or wrath we must in reason believe that though these are not in God as they are in man with any imperfection yet there is something in God that cannot fitlier be represented to man nor be understood by man then by the Images of such expressions as God himself is pleased to use 3. But I beseech you hearken to Nature it self Doth it not teach all rational creatures in necessity to pray to God A storm will teach the prophanest Sea-man to pray and that with continuance and fervency The Mariners could say to Jonah in their danger What meanest thou O sleeper arise call upon thy God if so be that God will think upon us that we perish not And they themselves cryed every man unto his God Jon. 1. 5 6. When thou comest to dye and seest there is no more delay nor any more hope from the pleasures of sin or from any of thy companions or old deceits then tell me whether nature teach thee not to cry and cry mightily for pardon and mercy and help to God Then we shall hear thee crying O Mercy mercy Lord upon a miserable sinner though now thou wilt not believe that prayer doth any good I le say no more to thee of this If Nature be not conquered and Grace have not forsaken thee thou wilt be taught at home to answer this objection Sure thou canst not easily so far conquer reason as to believe that there is no God And if thou believe that there is a God thou canst not believe that he is not to be worshipped and that with the greatest seriousness and diligence Nor that he is not the giver of all that thou dost want Or that the Governour of the world regardeth not the dispositions and actions of his subjects but will equally reward the good and bad and give to all alike and have no respect to mens preparations for his reward What Heathen that believeth that there is a God doth not believe that Prayer to him is a necessary part of his worship Obj. But is not your strict observation of the Lords day a controverted thing Answ In this also I will strip thee of this excuse 1. Spend the Lords day but according to the common principles of Christianity and reason and it shall suffice Spend it but as one that loveth God better then any thing in the world and that taketh more pleasure in his service then in sin and vanity Spend it but as the necessities of thy own soul and thy families require as one that 's glad of so honourable gainful and delightful an imployment as the publick and private worshipping of God and the serious contemplation of the life to come As one that knoweth the need and benefit of having stated times for the service of God and what would come of all Religion if the Time were left to each ones will Spend it as men that put a just difference between the common business of this world and the things that concern your endless state and that have considered the proportion of one day in seven in reference to this different consequence of the work Spend it as men that have lost as much time as you have done and have need to make the best of the little that is left and that are behind hand so far in the matters of your salvation and have need to work with all your might and should be gladder of the helps of such a day then of thousands of gold and silver Spend it as those that believe that we owe God as much service as the Jews did Spend it as the Ancient Christians spent it that were wont to stay together almost from morning till night in publick worship and Communion Spend it as the Kings Declaration requireth which saith Our purpose and resolution is and shall be to take care that the Lords day be applied to holy exercises without unnecessary divertisements 2. And if yet there be any doubt in this I refer you to the judgment of the Church of England expressed in the Homily of the Time and Place of Prayer And for the Time the Name the Antiquity the
them that entertained him that you were called on and warn'd as well as they but obstinately despised and neglected all That Life and Death were set before you and the everlasting joyes were offered to your choice against the charms of sinful Pleasures and you might have freely had them if you would and were told that Holiness was the only way and that it must be Now or Never and yet that you chose your own destruction These thoughts will be part of Hell to the ungodly They will wonder that Reason could be so unreasonable and they that had the common wit of man in other matters should be so far beside themselves in that which is the only thing that its commendable to be wise for that such sottish Reasonings should prevail with them against the clearest light and nothing should be preferred before all things and arguments fetcht from chaff and dung should conquer those that were fetcht from Heaâ—en O what heart-renting thoughts will these be when Eternity shall afford them leisure for an impartial review Yea that they should deceive others also with such a gross deceit and scorn at all that would not be as mad as they that being drunken with the worlds delusion they should abuse all that were truly sober that the one thing needfull should seem to them a needless thing That their tongues should plead for these delusions of their wicked hearts and they should be enemies to those that would not be enemies to God and to themselves and cast away their Time and Souls as they did They will wonder with self-indignation what could bewitch them into so great unreasonableness below a man against the light of nature as well as of supernatural revelation Honourable and beloved Hearers I beseech you do not take it ill that I speak so much of these matters that are so unpleasant and unwelcome to unbelieving careless carnal hearts It is that I may prevent all this in time by the awakenings of true Repentance And O that this might be the success That I might hear by your penitent Confessions and see by your universal speedy reformation that God hath so great Mercy for you that these perswasions might be the means of so much Happinesse to you and comfort unto me However this Assembly shall be witnesses that you were warned and Conscience shall be witness that if you wast the rest of your dayes in the pleasures and vanities of this deceitful world it was not because you could have no better and were not called to higher things That if you yet stand idle it is not because you could not be hired For in the name of Christ I have called you into his vineyard and told you of your work and wages and ashamed your excuses and objections this day Come away then speedily from the snares of sinners and the Company of deceived hardened men and cast away the works of darknesse Heaven is before you Death is at hand The Eternal God hath sent to call you Mercy doth yet stretch forth its arms You have staid too long and abused Patience too much already Stay no longer O now please God and comfort us and save your selves by Resolving that this shall be the Day and faithfully performing of this your Resolution Vp and be doing Believe Repent Desire Obey and do all this with all your Might Love him that you must Love for ever and Love him with all your Soul and Might seek that which is truly worth the seeking and it will pay for all your cost and pains And seek it first with all your Might Remembring still it must be Now or Never BEfore I conclude I have two messages yet to deliver to the servants of the Lord The One is of Encouragement The Other of Direction I know that many of you have a threefold trouble which requireth a threefold comfort and encouragement One is that you have done so little of your work but lost so much of your time already Another is that you are so opposed and hindred And the greatest of all is that you are yet so dull and slow The cure of which must be the matter of my Directions 1. For the first That you have lost your Time must be the matter of your Humiliation But that all is not lost before you see your sin and duty but yet the patience and mercy of the Lord are attending you and continuing your hope this is the matter of your comfort and encouragement Repent therefore that you came no sooner home But rejoyce that you are come home at last and now be more diligent in redeeming your time in remembrance of the time already lost And though it must be your grief that your Master hath been deprived of so much as his service and others of so much good which you should have done them and that time is lost that cannot be recalled yet it is your comfort that your own Reward may be equal with them that have born the burthen and heat of the day For many that are last in the time of their coming in shall be first in receiving their reward This is the meaning of that Parable in Mat. 20. which was spoken to encourage them that had stood out too long and to rebuke the envie and high expectations of them that came in sooner and it is no whit contradictory to those passages in Matth. 25. which intimate a different degree of glory to be given to them that have different degrees of Grace upon their industrious improvement The one Parable Matth. 20. shews that men shall not be rewarded differently for their longer or shorter continuance in the work but that those that came in late and yet are found with equal holiness shall be rewarded equally with the first And more if their holiness be more which the second Parable expresseth declaring Gods purpose to give them the greatest Glory that have improved their Holiness to the greatest Measure O therefore that the sense of your former unkindness might provoke you the more resolvedly to give up your selves in fervent love and full obedience and then you will find that your Time is Redeemed though it cannot be recalled and that Mercy hath secured your full reward O what an unspeakable Mercy is this that if yet you will devote your selves entirely to Christ and serve him with your might the little time that yet remains he will take it as if you had come in at the first hour of the day 2. And as for the Opposition and hinderances in your way they are no other then what your Lord foretold He hath gone before you and conquered much more then ever you will encounter from without though he had not a body of sin to conquer and in that respect the conquest of his Spirit in his members hath the preheminence of his personal conquest He hath bid you Be of good chear because he hath overcome the World If you will not take up your cross and follow him you
and to confute them But I am listed under Christ will never give over pleading for him till his adversaries give over pleading against him and his cause as long as he continueth my liberty and duty And blessed be the Lord that if an Hypocritical Preacher be found among us that secretly or openly disgraceth a diligent holy life there are more able holy faithful ones to confute him both by Doctrine and by their Lives then are to be found in any other Kingdom in the world proportionally that ever I could hear of And that the faithful Disciples are so many and the Judas'es so few how great a blessing is it to this Land and how great an honour to his Majesties Government and to the Church in his Dominions The Lord teach this sinful Nation to be thankful and pardon their ingratitude and never deprive them of this forfeited mercy The Lord teach them to hearken to the Friends and not to the Enemies of Holiness and never to receive a wound at the heart of their Religion however they hear their smaller differences about things circumstantial And now I should conclude I am loth to end for fear lest I have not yet prevailed with you What are you now resolved to do from this day forward It is work that we have been speaking of and necessary work of endless consequence which must be done and quickly done and throughly done Are you not convinced that it is so that plowing and sowing are not more necessary to your harvest then the work of holiness in this day of grace is necessary to your salvation You are blind if you see not this you are dead if you feel it not what then will you do For Gods sake and for your own sake stand not demurring till time be gone It is all that the Devil desireth if he can but find you one thing or other to be thinking and talking and doing about to keep you from this till time be gone and then he will insult over you then he that kept you from seeing and feeing will help you to see and feel to your calamity Then the Devil will make you feel that which Preachers could not make you feel and he will make you think of that and lay it close enough to your hearts which we could not get you to lay to heart Now we study and preach to you in hope but then alas it breaks our hearts to think of it we have done with you for ever because all hope is gone Then the Devil may challenge a Minisâ—â—r Now do thy worst to bring this sinner to repentance Now call to him to consider and believe and come to Christ Now offer him mercy and intreat him to accept it Now cry to him to take heed of sin and of temptations that he comes not to this place of torments Now tell him of the beauty or necessity of holiness and call upon him to Turn and Live Now do thy worst to rescue him from my power and to save his soul Alas poor sinner will you stop your ears and go on in sin and damn your selves and break our hearts to fore-see that day Must we see the Devil go away with such a prey and shall we not rescue your captivated souls because you will not hear you will not stir you will not consent Oh hear the God of Heaven if you will not hear us who calleth to you Return and Live Oh hear him that shed his blood for souls and tendereth you now salvation by his blood O hear without any more delay before all is gone and you are gone and he that now deceiveth you torment you Yet hold on a little longer in a carnal earthly unsanctified state and it is too late to hope to pray or strive for your salvation Yet a little longer and mercy will have done with you for ever and Christ will never invite you more nor never offer to cleanse you by his Blood or sanctifie you by his Spirit Yet a little longer and you shall never hear a Sermon more and never more be troubled with those Preachers that were in good sadness with you and longed once for your conversion and salvation O sleepy dead-hearted sinners what should I do to show you how near you stand to Eternity and what is now doing in the world that you are going to how these things are thought on there What should I do to make you know how Time is valued how sin and holinesse are esteemed in the world where you must live for ever What should I do to make you know those things to day which I will not thank you to know when you are gone hence O that the Lord would open your eyes in time Could I but make you know these things as believers should know them I say not as those that see them nor yet as dreamers that do not regard them but as those that believe that they must shortly see them what a joyfull hours work should I esteem this how happy would it be to you and me if every word were accompanied with tears If I followed you home and beg'd your Consideration on my bear knees or as a beggar begs an alms at your doors If this Sermon cost me as many censures or slanders as ever Sermon did I should not think it too dear if I could but help you to such a sight of the things we speak of that you might truly understand them as they are that you had but a true awakned apprehension of the shortnesse of your day of the nearless of eternity and of the endless consequence of your present work and what holy labour and sinful loytering will be thought of in the world to come for ever But when we see you sin and trifle and no more regard your endless life and see also what haste your Time is making and yet cannot make you understand these things when we know our selves as sure as we speak to you that you will shortly be astonished at the review of your present sloth and folly and when we know that these matters are not thought of in another world as they are among the sleepy or the bedlam sinners here and yet know not how to make you know it whom it doth so exceeding much concern this amazeth us and almost breaks our hearts Yea when we tell you of things that are past doubt and can be no further matter of controversie then men have sold their understandings betrayed their reason to their sordid lusts and yet we cannot get reasonable men to know that which they cannot choose but know to know that seriously and practically which alwayes hath a witness in their breasts and which none but the profligate dare deny I tell you sinners this even this is worse then a prison to us it is you that are our persecutors it is you that are the daily sorrow of our hearts it s you that disappoint us of our hopes and make us lose so
thankfulness to shew as well as the greatest mercies to receive and miserie to escape as those that believe that if sinners that without Christ had no hope shall now love their sins refuse to leave them and to repent and be converted and unthankfully reject the mercie of salvation so dearly bought and so freely offered them their damnation will be doubled as their sin is doubled Live but as men that have such Redemption to admire such mercie to entertain and such a salvation to attain and that are sure they can never scape if they continne to neglect so great salvation Heb. 2. 3. And is there any controversie among Christians in any of this There is not certainly 4. Live but as men that believe that the holy Ghost is given by Jesus Christ to convert to quicken to sanctifie all that he will save that except you be born of the Spirit you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Joh. 3. 5 6. Rom. 8. 9. And that without this no patching or mending of your lives by any common principles wil serve the turn for your salvation or make you acceptable to God Heb. 11. 6. Live as men that believe that this Spirit is given by the hearing of the word of God and must be prayed for and obeyed not resisted quench'd and griev'd And is there any controversie among Christians in any of this Ask those that make a mock at Holinesse Sanctification and the Spirit whether they be not baptized into the Name of the Holy Ghost and profess to believe in him as their Sanctifier as well as in the Son as their Redeemer And then ask them whether it be not a thing that should make even a devil to tremble to come so near the blasphemy against the holy Ghost as to mock at his Office and Sanctifying work and at the holines without which no man shall see the Lord Heb. 12. 14. and this after they are baptized and profess to believe in the holy Ghost as their Sanctifier 5. Live but as men that believe that sin is the greatest evil the thing which the Holy Ghost abhorreth and then you will never make a mock of it as Solomon saith the foolish do Pro. 14. 9. nor say What harm is in it 6. Live but as men that believe no sin is pardoned without Repentance and that Repentance is the loathing and forsaking of sin and if that it be true it will not suffer you to live wilfully in any gross sin nor to desire to keep the least infirmity nor to be loth to know your unknown sins 7. Live as those that believe that you are to be members of the Holy Catholick Church and therein to hold the Communion of Saints And then you will know that it is not as a member of any Sect or Party but as a holy member of this holy Church that you must be saved and that it is the name of a Christian which is more honourable then the name of any division or sub-division among Christians whether Greek or Papist or Potestant or Prelatist or Presbyterian or Independent or Anabaptist It is easie to be of any one of these parties but to be a Christian which all pretend to is not so easie It is easie to have a burning zeal for any divided party or cause but the common zeal for Christian Religion is not so easie to be kindled or kept alive but requireth as much diligence to maintain it as dividing zeal requireth to quench it It is easie to love a party as a party but to keep up Catholick charity to all Christians to live in that holy love converse which is requisite to a Christian communion of Saints is not so easie Satan and corrupted nature befriend the love and zeal of faction which is confined to a party on a controverted cause but they are enemies to the love of Saints and to the zeal for holiness and to the chatholick charity which is from the spirit of Christ You see I call you not to division not to side with Sects but to live as members of a holy Catholick Church which consisteth of all that be holy in the world and to live as those that believe the Communion of Saints 8. Live as those that believe that there is a life everlasting where the Sanctified shall live in endless joy and the unsanctified in endless punishment and woe live but as men that verily believe a Heaven and a Hell and a day of Judgment in which all the actions of this life must be revised all men judged to their endless state Believe these things heartily and then think a holy diligence needless if you can Then be of the mind of the deriders enemies of godliness if you can If one sight of Heaven or Hell would serve without any more ado instead of other arguments to confute all the cavils of the distracted world to justifie the most diligent Saints in the judgment of those that now abhor them why should not a sound belief of the same thing in its measure do the same 9. Live but as those that believe this life is given us as the only Time to make preparation for eternal life and that all that ever shall be done for your salvation must be Now just Now before your time is ended Live as those that know and need not faith to tell them that this time is short and almost at an end already and stayeth for no man but as a post doth haste away It will not stay while you are trimming you or sporting you it will not stay while you are taken up in Stage-plays in complements in idleness or any impertinent needless thing It wil not tarry while you spend yet the other year or month or day in your worldliness or ambition or in your lusts and sensual delights put off your Repentance to another time O sirs for the Lords sake do but live as men that must shortly be buried in a grave their souls appear before the Lord and as men that have but this little Time to do all for their everlasting life that ever must be done O live as men that are sure to die and are not sure to live till to morrow And let not the noise of pleasure or wordly business or the chat or scorns of miserable fools bear down your reason and make you live as if you knew not what you know or as if there were any doubt about these things Who is the man and what is his name that dare contradict them and can make it good O do not sin against your knowledg do not stand still and see your glass running and Time making such hast and yet make no more haste your selves then if you were not concerned in it Do not O do not slumber when Time and Judgment never slumber nor sit still when you have
these But we profess to you and all the world that we are not so in love with sorrows or sowrness nor so fallen out with joy and pleasures as co choose a life of miserable sadness or refuse a life of true delight If we could hear from any man or find by the most diligent inquiry that there is a more full and sweet and rational and satisfactory and durable delight to be had in any other way then that of serious faith and holinesse which Christ in Scripture hath revealed to us we were like enough to hearken after it But can the distracted sensual world believe that its sweeter and happier to ruffle it out in fleshly gallantry and sport and to rage against the godly for a while till the vengeance of God lay hold upon them and give them their reward then to live in the love of God and wait in patience for the performance of Gods promise of everlasting joy Oh what a thing is fleshly passion and raging sensuality and blind unbelief The Lord have mercy upon poor deluded sinners the Devils business is to turn the world into a Bedlam and alas how strangely hath he prevail'd That so many men can take their greatest misery for their happiness and the only happiness for an intollerable life Yea and be so angry with all that are not of their mind and will not set as much by filth and foolery and as little by God and Glory as they Like the Noble man that was Lunatick or mad by fits and when ever he was mad he would swear all were mad that said not as he said and would make all his servants be sent to Bedlam that would not immitate him and there they must lie as mad men till their Lord was recovered from his madness So are Gods servants used and talkt of in the world as if they were beside themselves as long as the world is uncured of its madness As the Man is so is his judgement and such is his relish and desire and delight When I was a child I had far more desire to fill my pin-box then now I have to fill my purse and accounted it a greater treasure and had much more delight and contentment in it And alas we may remember since we were strangers to the relish of Heavenly things that we found more pleasure in that of which we are now ashamed then we did in the most high and excellent things Let us therefore pitty and pray for those that are distempered with the same disease I have been longer on this then I thought to have been because men think that we call them from all Mirth Joy pleasure to a sowre heavy melancholy life when we call them to serious diligence for their salvation As if levity folly were the only freinds to Pleasure and it were only to be found in childish worthless transitory things And as if the greatest everlasting Happiness were no matter of true Delight nor Seriousness or Diligence of a friend to Joy 9. Moreover as to the manner God will be served with absolute self-resignation without Exceptions Limitations or Reserves Not with the leavings of the flesh nor with a Proviso that you may not suffer by your Religion or be poor or despised or abused by the world But with self-denyal you must lay down all the fleshes interest at his feet and you must take up your Cross and follow a suffering Christ to Glory You must serve him as those that are wholly His and not your own and have nothing but what is his and therefore nothing to be excepted reserved or saved from him but must be content that you and all your interest be in his hands and saved by him if saved at all I know these tearms seem hard to flesh and blood and should Heaven be the Crown and reward to them that have undergone no tryal for it But here is nothing but what is past all controversy and all Christians do confess is the Word of Christ 10. Lastly God will be served resolvedly and constantly If you will raign you must conquer and endure to the end Opposition you must expect and overcome it if you would not be overcome It is not good beginnings that will serve turn unlesse you also persevere and fight out the good fight of faith and finish your course and patiently wait to the last breath for the Crown of Righteousness which the Righteous Judge will give the Conquerours when the unbelieving world shall say of all their Delight and Hope Its past and gone we shall never see or tast it more but must now tast of that endlesse wrath of God which we were treasuring up when we should have workt out our salvation Well sirs I have all this while been describing to you both as to the Principles the Matter and the Manner what that Religion and Service of God is in which you must labour with all your might that you may see that it is no factious or private opinions or practices that we call you to and that your consciences may no longer be deluded with the pretences of mens different opinions in Religion and that the names of Prelatical Presbyterian Puritan Papist nor any other sounding in your ears may not so distract and doat you as to make you forget the name of Christian which you have all undertaken nor what the Christian Religion is You see now that it is nothing no not a syllable or tittle which all sober Christians are not agreed in that we perswade you to do as the work of your Religion And therefore I tell you again here before that God that shall be your Judge and that Conscience that shall be as a thousand witnesses that if you will go on in ungodly worldly lives and refuse the serious diligence of Christians in this Religion which your selves profess it shall be so far from being any excuse or ease to you that there were Hypocrites or Hereticks or Schismaticks or different opinions in Religion in the world that this very thing shall aggravate your sin and condemnation that all these Hypocrites Schismaticks or diffeing parties in the Church did agree in the confession of all these things and yet for all that you would not practice them no nor practice what your selves confessed All these Parties or Sects shall rise up against the sensual and prophane ungodly sinner and say Though we were ignorant or doubtful of many other things yet we are all agreed in these we gave our concurrent testimony for them we tempted no man to doubt of these or to deny them If you will erre more then an Hypocrite or a Schismatick and be far worse then those that are such or you account such and think to excuse it because they erred in lesser things it is as if the devil should excuse his sin by saying Lord thy Saints did none of them love thee as they should and Hypocrites did but seem to love thee and therefore I thought
Authority the Work it self I desire you but to receive what is there delivered not by any factious persons but by the Church Do this and we are agreed and satisfied And I make it my request to the Reader to peruse both Parts of that Homily that he may know how far the Church of England is from the loose conceits of the enemies of Godliness And if also you will read over the Homilies against the peril of Idolatry you will the fuller know the Judgement of the Church about the manner of Gods worship Indeed the whole Book is such as the people should be acquainted with I Have done my part to open to you the Necessity of SERIOVS DILIGENCE and to call up the sluggish souls of sinners to mind the work of their salvation and to do it SPEEDILY and with all their MIGHT I must now leave the success to God and you What use you will make of it and what you will be and do for the time to come is a matter that more concerneth your selves then me If long speaking or multitude of words were the way to prevail with you I should willingly speak here while my strength would endure and lengthen out my exhortations yet seven-fold But that 's not the way A little wearieth you You love long feasts and long visits and plays and sports much better then long Sermons or Books or Prayers But it is no small grief to us to leave you in a case of such importance without some considerable hopes of your deliverance Sirs the matter is now laid before you and much in your own hands it will not be so long What will ye now do Have I convinced you now that God and your salvation are to be sought with all your might If I have not it is not for want of evidence in what is said but for want of willingness in your selves to know the truth I have proved to you that it is a matter out of controversie unless your lusts and passions and carnal interest will make a controversie of it I beseech you tell me if you be of any Religion at all why are you not strict serious and diligent and mortified and Heavenly in that Religion which you are of Sure you will not so far shame your own Religion whatever it be as to say that your Religion is not for mortification holinesse heavenliness self-denial or that your Religion alloweth you to be ambitious covetous gluttonous drunken to curse and swear and whore and raile and oppress the innocent It is not Religion but Diabolical serpentine malignity that is for any of this It s wonderful to think that learned men and Gentlemen and men that pretend to reason and ingenuity can quietly betray their souls to the Devil upon such silly grounds and do the evil that they have no more to say for and neglect that duty that they have no more to say against when they know they must do it NOW or NEVER That while they confesse that there is a God and a life to come a Heaven and a Hell and that this life is purposely given us for preparation for Eternity while they confess that God is most wise and holy and good and just and that sin is the greatest evil and that the Word of God is true they can yet make shift to quiet themselves in an unholy sensual careless life And that while they honour the Apostles and Martyrs and Saints that are dead and gone they hate their successors and imitators and the lives that they lived and are inclined to make more Martyrs by their malicious cruelty Alas all this comes from the want of a sound belief of the things which they never saw and the distance of those things the power of passion and sensual objects and inclinations that hurry them away after present vanities and conquer reason and rob them of their humanity and by the noise of the company of sensual sinners that harden and deaffen one another and by the just judgement of God forsaking those that would not know him and leaving them to the blindness and hardness of their hearts But is there no remedy O thou the fountain of mercy and relief vouchsafe these miserable sinners a remedy O thou the Saviour of lost mankind have mercy upon these sinners in the depth of their security presumption and misery O thou the Illuminater and Sanctifier of souls apply the remedy so dearly purchased We are constrained oft to fear lest it be much long of us that should more seriously preach the awakening truths of God unto mens hearts And verily our consciences cannot but accuse us that when we are most lively and serious alas we seem but almost to trifle considering on what a message we come and of what transcendent things we speak But Satan hath got his advantage upon our hearts that should be instrumental to kindle theirs as well as on theirs that should receive the truth O that we could thirst more after their salvation O that we could pray harder for it and entreat them more earnestly as those that were loath to take a denial from God or man I must confess to you all with shame and sorrow that I am even amazed to think of the hardness of my own heart that melteth no more in compassion to the miserable and is no more earnest and importunate with sinners when I am upon such a subject as this and am telling them that it must be NOW or NEVER and when the messengers of Death within and the fame of mens displeasure from without doth tell me how likely it is that my Time shall be but short and that if I will say any thing that may reach the hearts of sinners for ought I know it must be NOW or NEVER O what an obstinate what a lamentable disease is this insensibility and hardness of heart If I were sure this were the last Sermon that ever I should preach I find now my heart would shew its sluggishness and rob poor souls of the serious fervour which is suitable to the subject and their case and needful to the desired success But yet poor sleepy sinners hear us Though we speak not to you as men would do that had seen Heaven and Hell and were themselves in a perfectly awakned frame yet hear us while we speak to you the words of truth with some seriousness and compassionate desire of your Salvation O look up to your God! Look out unto eternity Look inwardly upon your souls Look wisely upon your short and hasty Time and then bethink you how the little remnant of your Time should be employed and what it is that most concerneth you to dispatch and secure before you die Now you have Sermons and Books and Warnings It will not be so long Preachers must have done God threatneth them and death threatneth them and men threaten them and its you it s you that are most severely threatned and that are called on by Gods warnings